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The ‘Clavioline’ M. Constant Martin, France, 1947

The Selmer Concert Clavioline

The Clavioline was designed to be a light portable electronic keyboard aimed at pop musicians of the time and became one of the most popular electronic instruments during the fifties. The Clavioline was a monophonic, portable, battery powered keyboard instrument. The first version of the instrument appeared in 1947 and was originally designed by M. Constant. Martin in 1947 at his factory in Versailles, France. The Clavioline consisted of two units: the keyboard with the controllable sound unit and a carrying case box fitted with an with amplifier and speaker. By using an octave transposer switch the single oscillator could be set within a range of five octaves (six in the Bode version). The keyboard unit had 18 switches (22 in the Selmer version) for controlling timbre ( via a high pass filter and a low pass filter ), octave range and attack plus two controls for vibrato speed and intensity. The overall volume was controlled by a knee lever. Martin produced a duophonic model of the Clavioline in 1949 shaped like a small grand piano and featuring a 2 note polyphonic system, the duophonic model never went into production.

The Selmer Clavioline with stand, amplifier and loudspeaker cabinet

The Clavioline made brass and string sounds which were considered very natural at the time and was widely used throughout 1950’s and 60’s by pop musicians such as the Beatles, Joe Meek’s ‘the Tornadoes’ (on’Telstar’)and by experimental the jazz musician Sun Ra.

The Clavioline was licensed to various to various global manufacturers such as Selmer (UK) and Gibson (USA). An expanded concert version was produced in 1953 by René Seybold and Harald Bode, marketed by the Jörgensen Electronic Company of Düsseldorf, Germany. In the 1940’s Claviolines were also built into large dance-hall organs by the Belgian company Decap and Mortimer/Van Der Bosch.

4 thoughts on “The ‘Clavioline’ M. Constant Martin, France, 1947”

I’ve just done a very interesting article on the Clavioline with the editor of Collectors Weekly. Loads of info on my web site. Published an A4 booklet, “An Introduction To The Clavioline” with photo’s, info, etc, etc.